Well, it’s been 5 days since I got my Handspring Treo 600 and I’ve been using it quite a bit since then. I’ve not really used the phone other than to contact Orange for some help setting up their e-mail system. Anyway, here are the good and the bad points so far:-

Good points

1. After getting used to it, the keyboard is pretty easy and quick to use. I can type on it about a third to a half of the speed of a normal keyboard now. This is far faster and more accurately than ever I could with Grafitti.
2. The screen is bright and easy to read. Some would not think that the 160×160 pixel screen was good enough, but I prefer the long battery life to a higher resolution one. It is easily ample for what I need.
4. The device is small and light. It’s small enough to fit in the trouser pocket.

Niggles.

1. The built-in midi player only handles files up to 64K and they can only be put onto the machine via e-mail. They can’t be transfered via HotSync!
2. The e-mail client, although pretty decent in most ways only allows messages up to 100K to be downloaded. This can be a little annoying.
3. You can’t play MP3’s on the supplied handsfree earphone.

As a Palm device with a phone attached, it works well overall. Only a few niggles. I’m definitely looking forward to the day I can buy a belt-clip case and a HoySync cradle. The supplied HotSync cable isn’t really up to the job.

Events since my last real update..

My parents arrived for a week and a half’s visit on Thursday. On Saturday afternoon and evening my Uncle and Aunt from Enfield arrived for a family meeting, seeing as my parents are pretty rarely up this way. Lots of family gossip ensued.

Sunday was mostly spent working out how to convert the fence which joins my garage to my house into a secure gate. As part of this we visited a number of DIY stores to review the matterials available. Whilst out I popped into PC World and picked up a multi-format memory card reader so I don’t have to connect my camera or handspring to the computer to transfer files.

Today’s been a pretty non-descript day, really. I’m now having to write down how long I’m spending on non-general items at work. ie. any work which is specific to a certain group within the department I have to note down. This is going to be initially for a month so as to gauge how much time each group is using as a way to determine a charging structure for the research groups. For doing this, my new Handspring has been very useful, just as my Palm Pilot would have been, but the keyboard does seem easier to use.

Tomorrow’s going to be a very boring day. The morning’s going to be taken up with writing reports followed by an afternoon of meetings. Oh well. Such is life.

I now have the Treo 600. It arrived at lunchtime and it’s all nice and registered with Orange.

My first thoughts after using it are:-

Thank goodness! Orange haven’t diddled with the software much.. one splash screen when you turn the phone part on or off, some set-up options for e-mail and that seems to be it.

The keyboard is a little fiddly to use but OK for me. I doubt someone with larger fingers would be able to use it easily, however.

Although the machine doesn’t have graffiti entry for text it does for menu options! :-/

It’s smaller and lighter than my Palm Pilot Pro except for the protruding aerial. The screen is crisp and bright and can be seen well at high angles. I don’t mind the relative low resolution of 160×160 as this is the same as the Pilot Pro I’m replacing.

Oh, and the camera takes OK pictures and Orange supply a 32MB SD/MMC card which is a pleasant surprise as it doesn’t mention this in the package contents when you buy the machine.

Methinks Handspring are getting Motorola to build the machines for them. Not that there’s any give away’s to this relationship other than the power-pack is a Motorola one and the device is manufactured in Mexico. Oh no, no evidence at all.

After pulling the Pilot apart and just blowing on it it’s started working again. Weird.

My Palm Pilot Pro just upped and died. :-/

I was about to check something I’d put on my Pilot before I went home and found that it wouldn’t switch on. “OK,” I thought. The batteries were down to about 50% a few days ago so they may have just run out.

However, when I got home and swapped out the batteries there was no change. I tried hitting the reset button.. nothing different except the backlight came on and stayed on. And that’s as far as it went.

Let’s hope the Handspring arrives tomorrow so I have a working Palm device again.

nothing about PDAs in this posting.

The planned video evening with Kat this evening has been called off due to her being forced to go out and drink. She had suggested retiming the event but as my parents arrive for a week and a bit’s visit tomorrow, this isn’t really going to happen.

Saturday’s going to be another family one with my aunt and uncle arriving from Enfield. The only fly in the ointment with this is the possibility that the new parking restrictions in my area will be in force. This will only be the case if there’s an event going on at the Kassam Stadium, but as the council doesn’t see fit to tell the residence when events are going to happen we have to take pot luck.

If there is an event, I’m going to have to try to clear up my garage enough to allow my dad to get the car mostly into it so that my uncle may be able to squeeze his car onto my drive.

What a pain.

Well, I have now ordered my new toy. It wasn’t without hassle, however.

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Orange have released the new Handspring Treo 600… according to their web site.

Time to wander into town tomorrow to se if I can get an upgrade there!

I’ve just got in from tonight’s fun but rather under populated By The Gods reunion doodah in London.

A notable omission was Alec, who, it seems, has picked up a slight bug during his many travels and hence felt too unwell to come.

Well, he did miss a goth couple who made chain-mail clothing, the woman of which wore a black lace top with a leather bodace, which she kept taking off to show people how it was made.

It was nice to see the gang again. Lunch was in TGI Friday’s with just four of us. A rather smaller number than usual but it still took about half an hour to get a table!

Seeing as I had arrived in London at about 11:45 and wasn’t meant to meet up with people at Charing Cross Police Station ’til 2pm, I decided to wander around annoying phone shop people asking the same question of all of them and then seeing what answer I got. The question I asked was “Do you know when Orange are releasing the Handsprint Treo 600?” It sounds a simple question, but the variety of answers shows how little most phone shop people know and how much they even read their own literature…

Orange Shop, Neal Street: “Erm, I think you can only get it at our business shops which are open during the week.” The nice woman then took out one of the glossy booklets which show current phones and showed me a number of pages with images of the Handspring on them. “I’ll just make sure and check with the manager.” Which she promptly did and confirmed with him that only business shops stock them but that they were available now and that I should be able to call up Orange and buy one that way.

Orange Shop, TCR end of Oxford Street: “The last I was told, they’re released on Wednesday.”

Orange Shop, Marble Arch end of Oxford Street: “I don’t know. I only heard of it today, so I guess it’ll be available in a month or so.”

Various other shops either looked at me as though I’d asked them what the phone number of God was or merely said that they didn’t know when it was going to be released, which is fair enough.

I did find it interesting the range of answers from people in Orange Shops, however. At least in two of them the people knew something about the phone, even if one of them was wrong about its availability. What did surprise me was that one of them obviously hadn’t even thumbed through this month’s glossy manual which was sitting next to his cash register to find out what the current in-phones from his company were.

Well, I’m sure you recollect that on Saturday I posted a an entry stating that I’d been told that Orange were releasing the Treo 600 soon. Well, yesterday I decided to try to get information about the release from a few other mobile phone shops.

First I tried the other Orange Shop in Oxford, their reply after much whispering amoungst themselves was “late November.” I then tried Phones4U at which I got a blank expression and no answer at all. The Link admitted to me that they had no idea what I was talking about. So, there you go, they all probably have no more idea about the release date than I do! Or maybe less.. At least I’ve read the original press release of 17th September which states “October” and I have seen the Orange web site which states “Coming soon to PM” (Pay Monthly) and I also know that the cost will be in the region of £200-£300.

Anyway, now some social news. Tonight I saw Pirates of the Carribean with the bunch of now 4th year undergrads who have befriended me. Let’s say that if you can forget about history and the fact that pirating was at its height about 100 years before this seems to be set (from the ships and costume) and the use of the “word” “O.K.” close to the beginning of the film then it’s rollocking good swashbucking spoof fun. Pleasantly surprising for a Disney feature, especially based upon a theme park ride.

Now, off to bed. Night all.